Beach erosion leaves Nantucket vacation home in peril — watch the astonishing time-lapse video
Real estate is in short supply on the exclusive Massachusetts vacation island of Nantucket — and according to an astonishing viral time-lapse video, the market’s about to get even tighter.
The surprising clip shows the ocean practically pounding on the back door of a sumptuous second home at 28 Sheep Pond Road, on the western end of the isle — which recently sold for a jaw-droppingly low $200,000.
The 1,700 square foot summer palace, purchased in 1988 by Jean Carlin and Ben Gifford, is “about ready to go in” to the drink, now mere feet from the abode, the Nantucket Current reported.
Compiled by the Current, the video uses aerial images of the 1,700-square-foot pad and surrounding area to show the dramatic changes to the shoreline.
Realizing that Mother Nature was winning the land war, the husband and wife had moved their belongings out of the space and were looking into the possibility of donating the property to a local affordable housing non-profit, an effort which was ultimately unsuccessful.
“All winter I had been really frantically trying to see if any of the organizations would consider taking the house and moving it, and we would help with the cost of moving,” said Carlin. “I didn’t want to see it fall into the ocean or get demolished. But I had no luck whatsoever.”
Then, unexpectedly, a businessman and the decade-long owner of a neighboring property (which he rents out), Don Vaccaro, rang the couple offering to purchase the ill-fated pad.
“We said ‘Whoa! We’re not going to say no’,” said Carlin, who subsequently sold the abode — which was assessed by the town this year to be worth $1.9 million — to Vaccaro for just $200,000.
Vaccaro is well aware that a storm may ruin the property at any time, and believes it likely won’t last beyond March of next year, but still he has plans for the house and land, including erosion mitigation strategies, which led him to make the decision to buy it.
“Basically, the house may not last more than six months,” Vaccaro told the Current. “Inevitably the ocean will win. The house is only temporary, everything in life is temporary.”
